Tripoli and Mantineia

Julian Worker

February 3

Tripoli or Tripolis is the capital of Arcadia and the hub of the road system in the central part of The Peloponnese. There are no ancient sites in the city itself as it was burned by The Turks in 1825 during the Greek War of Independence. The Greeks regained the city in 1829 and rebuilt the place. The city has a cool climate as it's surrounded by mountains that reach 2,000 metres in height. There are two interesting museums. The first is the Archaeological Museum housed in a two-storey neoclassical building, designed by architect Ernst Ziller. Finds from the excavations of ancient sites in Arcadia are exhibited. It includes Neolithic and Early Helladic objects and utensils from recent excavations in Sakovouni and Kamenitsa. The second museum is the War Museum. It was founded in February 2000 on the ground floor of a house in the central square of Agios Vassilios. The wars referred to in the title of the museum are the beginning of the War of Greek Independence of 1821 and World War II. The exhibits in the museum cover these two wars.

Mantineia is about twenty minutes north of Tripoli. There's an interesting archaeological site on one side of the road with the foundations of a number of buildings including a theatre. On the other side of the road is the Agia Fotini church, one of the strangest buildings I've ever seen. What makes the church so different from every other church in Greece, possibly anywhere, is that you can't classify it in any particular school of architecture. The diversity of the building materials (stone, marble, brick) combined with its overall architecture, made me feel bewildered but also made me smile. The church was founded in 1969 and inaugurated in 1978, by the then metropolitan bishop Kyros Theoklitos II Philippios. When walking around this area, you have to remember there were two large battles in this area over two thousand years ago.

The first battle was in 418 BC, the largest land battle of the Peloponnesian War where the Spartans overcame the forces of Athens and their allies and won a decisive victory. In 362 BC, the Thebans overcame the combined forces of the Spartans and the Athenians although the battle was the beginning of the end of Theban control of the area as they lost their outstanding general Epaminondas in the battle and their army never recovered from the blow.